KOREAN WAR
In the dry and clinical description of the annalist, the Korean War may be defined as a war between North Korea allied with China and the Soviet Union and South Korea allied with the United Nations and the United States of America. The war began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea. As always, wars have complex backgrounds. Reasons and factors and inevitabilities are dominoes that later historians set up in the worthy cause of warning the present time and future times not to go down that path.
I will keep this personal and small-scale. My father was a veteran of the Korean War. He was there 1953-1954 with the 7th Infantry Division and was awarded a Bronze Star for meritorious service. He was 23-24 years old there, fresh out of Michigan State University’s ROTC program. We always traded military history back and forth. Late in life he began to tell me stories of his time there — and of his experiences in the Dominican Republic and in Vietnam. As a bookseller I provided him with books on “his” war, which he appreciated for the larger canvas they provided. Here are some of the good ones I have found over the years. I know I don’t have enough of the Korean perspective of the war, and I don’t have many big strategic maps that situate the war within the Cold War. But this listing is a beginning. History is always beginning over. As a discipline, as a way of thought, history never tires of trying to get the story not only right but understandable.
This Kind of War [50th anniversary edition]
This Kind of War [50th anniversary edition]
Selected for the 2019 Commandant's Professional Reading List
Updated with maps, photographs, and battlefield diagrams, this special fiftieth anniversary edition of the classic history of the Korean War is a dramatic and hard-hitting account of the conflict written from the perspective of those who fought it. Partly drawn from official records, operations journals, and histories, it is based largely on the compelling personal narratives of the small-unit commanders and their troops. Unlike any other work on the Korean War, it provides both a clear panoramic overview and a sharply drawn "you were there" account of American troops in fierce combat against the North Korean and Chinese communist invaders. As Americans and North Koreans continue to face each other across the 38th Parallel, This Kind of War commemorates the past and offers vital lessons for the future.